— A comfortable majority of Europeans now say they are optimistic about the future of the EU and 68 percent identify themselves as EU citizens, the highest ever recorded by the European Commission, according to a new Eurobarometer survey of more than 33,000 people across the bloc and in candidate countries. The data also shows that despite Brexit, 36 percent of Brits say they have a positive image of the EU, up 2 percentage points, and 29 percent say they have a negative image (down 3 percentage points).

— Let the horse-trading begin. The merits of the 19 aspirants to be the post-Brexit home of the European Medicines Agency and the eight bidders for the European Banking Authority should carry the day in the relocation decision-making. But in reality, politics will play a significant role, as the 27 countries take part in the age-old spectacle of vote-trading, geographic balancing and tough compromises — as always behind closed doors, yet with the details sure to leak out.

— While the EU’s official criteria for the new headquarters of the agencies include business continuity and infrastructure, the bids for the EMA also stress cities’ “delicious national cuisine” and lack of terror attacks; while EBA aspirants tout the variety of beer available, spa resorts and “2,000 hours of dance-floor magic” annually. The EMA itself has announced it will scale back its activities ahead of the move.

— Brexit may affect the U.K. economy so severely that climate policies become a luxury the government can no longer afford, the head of the country’s independent Committee on Climate Change, John Gummer, told POLITICO. Unlike other areas that risk significant disruptions with Brexit, the U.K.’s climate change policies are mostly controlled at a national level and not directly reliant on what happens in Brussels.

INSIGHT

Brexit policy is no longer being issued by decree from No.10 Downing Street.

But the sense of unshackling also extends to Whitehall and senior civil servants.

Officials in Downing Street and in the wider civil service that POLITICO has spoken to in recent days all note a marked uptick in the confidence and assertiveness of individual Whitehall departments and their staff. Senior civil servants are speaking up for their department’s Brexit interests far more, one official said.

Departments and ministers have also felt more at liberty to shape their own messaging and agenda. Note Michael Gove’s free-flowing speech on agriculture, which announced a whole new agenda — green Brexit. Or Amber Rudd’s ownership of the major announcement that the government will seek expert advice on its post-Brexit immigration policy.

Post the election, May personally chairs and attends fewer of the influential Cabinet committees that shape broad government strategy, according to the Institute for Government; while the emollient figure of Damian Green, her first secretary of state, now chairs eight. He led none before the election and his promotion to what is effectively deputy prime minister.

The IfG has also found that the last five weeks have been some of the busiest of the year for official government announcements, with the week before parliamentary recess the single busiest. Some of this is down to the ordinary “take out the trash” approach of publishing things at the last minute, but it also reflects more self-confident government departments no longer terrified of upsetting No. 10 with off-message policy announcements or publications.

One of the key differences in the shaping of the Brexit strategy post election, officials say, is the absence of May’s joint chiefs of staff Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, who were forced out after a revolt by Conservative MPs. Timothy and Hill took many of the key Brexit decisions themselves — drawing red lines under policies that left ministers and their officials hamstrung, one official said.

The “chiefs,” as they become known, would also demand that Whitehall departments come up with daily uncontroversial but newsworthy announcements that would often then be abandoned at the last minute, according to an insider in the prime minister’s office. That culture has changed since they left and people seem a lot happier, according to the official.

Now, a thousand flowers can bloom in Whitehall. The effect is already becoming clear and could lead to a far different Brexit to the one many thought possible only a few short months ago.

A green Brexit? A Norway-style Brexit? Now the civil service is back in the driving seat, the future is up for grabs.

— An Irish parliamentary committee looking at the impact of Brexit on Ireland has set out a proposal to find a way toward peaceful reunification. The committee will publish its report — “Brexit and the Future of Ireland: Uniting Ireland and its People in Peace and Prosperity” — later today. It outlines 17 recommendations on what the Republic of Ireland should seek in the final EU-U.K. agreement, including special status for Northern Ireland, the need to protect structural funds and no new passport controls.

— Scotland won’t vote in favor of independence from the U.K. because “it would be terrible” and “they just went through hell,” U.S. President Donald Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an interview last week, according to a transcript obtained by POLITICO and published Tuesday. Asked about a potential trade agreement with Britain, Trump mused, “You don’t hear the word Britain anymore. It’s very interesting. It’s like, nope.”

—The British government today published its plans for a Sanctions Bill that will introduce powers to allow it to impose sanctions on terror groups and hostile regimes after it leaves the EU, Reuters reported today. Under current rules, the U.K. imposes non-U.N. sanctions through EU law.

— Sixty-one percent of Brexiteers would be happy if the British economy sustains “significant damage” if it means leaving the EU, according to a YouGov poll published Tuesday. Thirty-four percent of Remainers feel the same about the economy if it means keeping the U.K. in the bloc.

— A group of Labour and Conservative MPs are hoping to force a vote during debate on the Repeal Bill in September on whether the U.K. should stay in the European Economic Area (EEA), at least during a post-Brexit transition period, to try and change No. 10’s stance on the issue. Conservative former Foreign Secretary William Hague also backed the idea of an EEA transition, the Guardian reported.

— Britain’s Brexit secretary, David Davis, has been criticised by the House of Lords EU committee for declining to appear before it to give evidence over the summer break. The Department for Exiting the EU is working over the summer break.

— Disruption to flights between Britain and the European Union from March 2019 is becoming more likely as Brexit talks proceed, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said today. Airlines would need a deal by the end of 2018 to be able to provide scheduled flights in March 2019, he said.

— The outlook for U.K. banks was upgraded from negative to stable by the credit ratings firm Moody’s today, as creditworthiness will improve even as Brexit uncertainty mounts and the economy lags. However, Moody’s forecasts the U.K.’s GDP growth to slow significantly and defaults on loans to rise.

— Deutsche Bank wants to shift 4,000 positions — almost half its U.K. staff — to the Continent, especially Frankfurt and Berlin, with the moves starting next year at the earliest once the bank has dealt with regulatory approvals and other preparations, sources told Bloomberg. At the same time, Deutsche Bank has also exchanged a pre-let agreement for its new City of London headquarters, the building’s developer said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The building will provide the bank with up to 50,000 square feet of workspace.

— “Frankfurt … benefits from the positive and stable economic conditions prevailing in Germany … all financial institutions based in the United Kingdom … would all be welcome to make Germany their home,” so says German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble in Frankfurt’s bid to be the post-Brexit home of the European Banking Authority, making a not-so subtle reference to the U.K.’s political turmoil and slow economic growth.

— “Listening to some people talk, you could be forgiven for thinking all our banks were about to shut down and move overseas. They aren’t and they won’t,” writes Gerard Lyons, former economic adviser to Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, in the Sun. He says the “City of London is Brexit-proof and will still lead Europe even after we leave the EU.”

— The U.K. has Europe’s biggest herd of unicorns — private companies that are valued at $1 billion or more. Part of how it got there was through funding from the European Investment Fund. But that source of EU venture capital could very well be cut off when Britain leaves the bloc, writes John Detrixhe in Quartz.

— Irish universities have recorded a surge in applications from international students, which academics say is linked to uncertainty over Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, the Irish Times reported. The spike in numbers is highest at University College Cork, where applications from non-EU students are up by 40 percent.

— The departing Irish ambassador to the U.K. expressed his personal “sadness” that Brexit is threatening to reverse decades of improving relations on the island of Ireland since peace was established 20 years ago. Dan Mulhall said that border checks between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland were a non-starter and Ireland’s “hope” was that Britain would remain inside the EU customs union.

— From Mick Jagger to Ali Smith, the creative class is trying to come to terms with Britain’s current lot with mixed success, writes Mark Lawson, who says that perhaps the best Brexit art is — as was the outcome of the referendum itself for the Cameron administration — accidental.

— Audience members at a classical music concert in London said they were asked to put away their European Union flags, the Evening Standard reported Tuesday. The performance by conductor Xian Zhang, which included the European Union’s anthem — Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” — was part of the Proms, an annual summer classical music festival at the Royal Albert Hall. “They just said it’s not allowed so I said, ‘that’s strange because flags are such a tradition at the Proms,’ but he said, ‘Not those flags,’” a concertgoer said.